When Lady Chenglan returned once more to the familiar starfield, more than half of the blue watery radiance that had once covered several Plane Worlds had vanished.
She was no stranger to this place.
As early as when the Clear River Delegation had first arrived in this Dimensional Plane, a trade fleet from the Lanxi Civilization had passed through the nearby starfields.
At that time, several water-element civilizations here had still been thriving.
Clusters of ocean planes radiated light blue Rule Halos, while countless Water Element Creatures traveled around the trade ports outside the planes.
But after merely several thousand years, everything had changed.
The two outermost water-element planes had completely lost their color.
The oceans on their surfaces had not simply dried up; even their Water-Element Origin had been extracted by Source-Devouring Beasts.
Only vast stretches of gray-white salt crust and shattered seabeds remained, exposed beneath the cold starlight of Clear River Time-Space.
Several other planes had not yet died completely.
However, their remaining seawater had become extremely turbid, and large numbers of low-level Homeland Beings had gathered in the few uncontaminated waters.
The Lanxi Civilization's fleet was currently stationed outside these planes.
The multipurpose vessels once used for transport, cultivation, and trade had now mostly been temporarily converted into "refuge ships."
Batch after batch of low-level creatures from Clear River Time-Space were brought aboard by guiding beams.
Quite a few of them were not even members of the Lanxi Civilization.
They came from small and medium-sized World Civilizations that had already been destroyed by the Source-Devouring Beasts. Having lost their Mother Planes, they could not find their original legions either.
The Lanxi Civilization did not refuse these creatures entry into its fleet.
However, as more and more refugees poured in, the fleet's available living space and water-element resources